


All The World Is Birthday Cake Because All The World Is On Fire

by LaughingThalia



Series: Orville Codas [10]
Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Violence, Concentration Camps, Episode: s02e05 All The World Is Birthday Cake, Government, Post-Prison, Racism, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22926574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingThalia/pseuds/LaughingThalia
Summary: --"Stars do not lie."----"Sometimes a star is just a star."--...--The Orville should have known better than to think things would be okay once they’d replaced the missing star in the constellation. Earth had had its fair share of atrocities, they should have known discrimination didn’t end overnight.The Gilliacs had been abused for centuries. That didn’t just go away in a day, it didn’t all just stop hurting because a law was passed, the wounds of the camps would never heal.--
Relationships: That Gilliac Couple (get names)
Series: Orville Codas [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/847572
Kudos: 8





	All The World Is Birthday Cake Because All The World Is On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this one I might rework in the future, it's a bit of an 'eeeh' topic because I feel a bit weird about comparing fake astrology racism to super dark horrible instances of real racism like trans-Atlantic slavery, the Holocaust and the atrocities committed against aboriginal people.  
> I was trying to write this kind of like how I did 'Happy and Healthy' where The Orville leaves the planet on a kind of better note but when you think about it for a moment things wouldn't be that much better on the planet just because Ed's problem has been solved.
> 
> PS the main character of this is the baby that was born in the Giliac camp. I named him Kellor after Kelly.

Regor 2 never did join the Planetary Union, after the whole Giliac mess had been cleared up the First Prefect had wanted to, finally signing onto the idea of being allied with people with different views on the stars than them but as it turned out the Union didn’t want them. 

Apparently locking their own citizens up in prison camps for no reason was highly looked down upon and no one was happy that they’d taken Lieutenant Commander Grayson and Commander Bortus into custody and refused to give them back, apparently Kelly Grayson’s father had a lot of political clout and he wasn’t happy that he’d almost lost his daughter for good.

After it became clear the Kaylon were a threat to all life the Union returned to work with them and hammer out a deal but they absolutely refused to let them have a seat on their council.

Kellor had grown up hearing stories of Kelly and Bortus, how they’d tried to save him from being taken from his parents, how their stand at the Giliac Camp was what brought back the missing star and righted thousands of years of injustice. His parents were Rokal and Ukania, just two Giliacs who had never had a chance in this world.

The First Prefect had let everyone go but he hadn’t helped anyone. All the Giliacs had little education, little job prospects, no money. They’d been stuck in a camp working for free for most of their lives so it made sense they had nothing. Both his parents had put their hard labour skills to use in the real world, working 4 jobs between them to make sure he was okay. He was a Wasanda, a future leader, a role model for the people.  Seeing the slums the Giliacs lived in, seeing the way Regor 2 had forced his parents to live didn’t make him want to help anyone, at least not anyone else.

He had long since passed the levels of education his parents had reached, he understood that being free was barely any different from being in that camp, he understood that the Prefect hadn’t saved them from that hell, he’d condemned them to another one. He understood that the armbands with the blue G all Giliacs were forced to wear on their right arms was nothing more than a way to make his parents the ‘other’, he got that the ‘No Giliacs’ signs outside of stores and bathrooms and swimming pools and restaurants and water fountains were nothing but discrimination pure and simple.

He understood that Kelly and Bortus may have cared about what happened to his parents when they were standing right in front of them, that the Union may have cared about their planet when it was new and exciting and when it affected them but now it wasn’t and it didn’t and the Union didn’t have to look at them anymore and they weren’t. 

He’d read earth history books in Highschool, The Orville should have known better. They should have known that a new star in a broken constellation would fix everything. Earth had had its fair share of atrocities, they should know it wouldn’t change overnight. The children of African-American slaves were segregated and punished for centuries after, the children of the Stolen Generation in Australia were reeling from the effects of imperialism for decades, Jewish people still bore the pain of being locked in camps and killed.

The Giliac had been abused and persecuted for thousands of years. All of that didn’t just go away in a day, it didn’t all just stop hurting because a law was passed, the wounds of the camps would never heal, not for him and not for his parents.

He remembered being a kid walking down the road hand in hand with his parents as children did, he remembered people crossing the road when they saw his dad, people spitting at his mom on the street, muttering ‘Giliac Trash’ under their breath.

He remembered when his parents had finally sat him down and explained the world to him, explained why people treated them badly when he was a child he’d screamed “That’s not fair!” and they'd flinched away terrified. His parents didn’t like it when he yelled, they were scared people would think that the Giliac couple had raised a Wasanda kid to be as violent as people thought they had been. They never raised their voices, they never raised their fists, they never talked back because if they did they’d be labelled “angry violent Giliac’.

The star may have returned and the laws may have changed but people’s minds hadn’t. It took a lot longer than 30 years to unlearn that kind of deep-seeded hate, even after 4 new First Prefects elected and departed from office, nothing had changed for the Giliacs or as they liked to be called now ‘the returned people’ after the star that had returned to them.

There was a fierce debate raging as to whether Giliac should be a slur or not, whether the sign and the people should still be called that, as someone with two Giliac parents and the last person to ever be born in the Giliac camps he’d become a bit of an accidental celebrity when he’d spoken about how Giliacs and those affected could reclaim the word but it had too much history to remain the official name, it had too many negative connotations. 

He hadn’t meant to become the leader of the CRP (Children of the Returned People) movement but he was a Wasanda, leading was kind of what he did.

He also didn’t mean for his little rallies outside the Prefect building to somehow launch a campaign for him to run for First Prefect. He’d worked in his own local party but that was very different from running an entire planet, he honestly wasn’t sure how he ended up in this situation but he was a Wasanda, he would make the best of this situation and change Regor 2 for the better for everyone.

He campaigned on Giliac issues, appealed to the children of Giliacs, the people with Gilaic friends and neighbours and colleagues, people who knew that Gilaics were not the violent monsters everyone had been told they were for centuries. He was a son of the Returned People, the son of people who had been demonised in their community, he was a Wasanda but he had lived the life of a Giliac, he’d seen the storm his parents had weathered. They’d worked themselves into an early grave just to get him opportunities like this. He’d be damned if he wasted that.

He won.

The son of two Giliacs as First Prefect for the first time ever. 

It was a start but it would take some time, a long time, for anything to ever be okay on Regor 2.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if this isn't it or if it feels like trivialising real events.


End file.
